


When did you last conjure with the devil?

by bunnystealsyourcarrots



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blasphemy, Dark, F/M, Hints of Smut, I hear they burn witches in these hills, Priest Kylo Ren, Psychological Torture, Religious Conflict, Salem Witch Trials, getting saucy, mention of non-con with not main characters, slow burn...literally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 03:21:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10867998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnystealsyourcarrots/pseuds/bunnystealsyourcarrots
Summary: In 1692, Reverend Kylo Ren was called to Salem to aid in the case of an accused witch named Rey Kenobi. No mercy was given on his side so long as she refused to repent. No mercy was offered back until she'd ripped his ego apart.





	When did you last conjure with the devil?

The shackles weighed heavily upon her slight wrists.

 

Each step grated the irons against her bones.

 

Each stumble she took tinkled the metal together until a song of sadness formed just for her - that twisted endless lament guiding the way to the woman's reckoning.

 

“I’m guilty of nothing!” Rey screeched.

 

The frantic woman swiveled her head from side to side to glare at every neighbor along the way. Refusing to go quietly when they spat at her. Refusing to allow one person to forget the day they'd wronged her. “You are the sinners!” she snarled back at them, baring her teeth. ”You are the ones who will suffer!”

 

“Listen to her now! She curses us!”

 

“I knew you were one of them!”

 

“I knew it!”

 

Louder and louder the fear chorus slammed into Rey. Each neighborly insult cut her off at the knees, but it was the shove to the back that sent her sprawling flat onto her stomach. The wind knocked clean out of her chest as she watched the two other women attached to her fall along with her. Hearing their bones rattle against cobblestone as Rey gasped helplessly on the ground. Hyperventilating. Sobbing out curses that dribbled uselessly down her chin as she felt the good of the world turn its back on her.

 

_We are not all precious._

 

_We can’t all be saved._

______________________

 

Aside from the flea-infested straw bedding, there were no comforts provided in Rey’s cell. The lone window was small, the ground gave her splinters, and she was only allowed a single candle to see her supper. Every night, she watched the flame flicker down- and every day she wrestled with the option of torching her bed. At her low points, Rey imagined how pretty the sparks might look floating up in the air. Freedom scenting the air whenever the candle tipped, but somehow, Rey ultimately resisted temptation with a decisive close of her eyes. Shunning the dark again by creating her own light.

Recalling instead, her mother holding her hand at the waterfront.

Remembering her father skipping stones that he claimed were the color of Rey’s eyes.

  
_Almost as pretty as you, my tiger eyes. Almost as pretty as you_.

______________________ _

 

“She’s in there.”

__

Leaning against the cell wall, Rey weakly turned towards the sound of heavy footsteps.

For the first time in days, the prisoner perked up. Standing up straighter, her dull eyes brightened up with life after it occurred to her that it wasn't yet mealtime. Without any awareness of her visitor's intentions, the woman might have reasonably panicked, but the gift of speaking to somebody else trumped everything. Hearing another voice was an opportunity too rare to waste with fear, and so she dusted herself off to look more presentable.

_They've come to tell me that I've been cleared._

_They'll let me go._

In the middle of excitedly smoothing out her apron, Rey’s cheeks flushed when the door swung open. Breathless, but smiling she looked up until the harsh light flooding into the room forced her to squint. Everything in her world skewed out of focus until the door shut again, and then suddenly a far more rattled Rey stood opposite from the first kind face she’d seen in three weeks.

“Good morrow,” he said, tipping his head.

“Good morrow,” Rey answered back.

 

The all black ensemble with white ruff peeking out from his collar marked her visitor as a minister, but he wore no wig. More than likely, he'd surrendered aesthetics due to the stifling humidity. A bare head seeming a touch improper, but Rey didn't mind the full measure of the man as he clutched his wide-brimmed hat in his hand. The dark curls grazing his shoulder making him look far younger than most clergymen, but judging by the wrinkles around his eyes, he was older than she.

  
  
_Someone perhaps wise enough to help._

 

In the cramped prison cell, everything about her stranger stood larger than life. Nearly reaching the ceiling, the man towered over Rey, but it was his unique features that sent electricity humming under her skin. Those large ears, nose, and mouth were too big to be called classically handsome, but when he smiled in polite greeting, Rey found him hauntingly beautiful. Lovely beyond reason.

 

For weeks, nobody had treated her like a human until this stranger with his brown eyes brimming full of melancholy offered her a hint of civility. His troubles carried close to the surface, just like her, and an immediate kinship for the stranger bloomed inside Rey's chest. In the space of a heartbeat, she swore that her soul unraveled to reach out to help him before tightening again around her own fragile heart.

 

If this was her grim reaper come to collect, then Rey deeply appreciated a nice view before leaving the world. Yes, those were cold hands that she could hold onto until her last breath.

 

_Don’t be morbid, Rey._

 

“I am Reverend Kylo Ren,” his rich baritone voice informed her as he casually folded the hands she’d been coveting. “Do you know why you’re in Salem?”

 

“A man’s spite.”

 

“No,” Reverend Ren loudly exhaled, sounding tired though they’d only just begun. “I was informed that you’d been long isolated to consider your options. After three weeks of meditation, I’d hoped to find you less willful, but clearly, you’ve not best used your time.”

 

Feeling the warm bond that she’d imagined immediately slashed into tatters, Rey winced. Smarting from the loss of his expected empathy, she looked away from the stranger. Unwilling to show off glossy eyes to another man who would be no comfort for her. “Was it you that ordered me here, sir?”

 

“No,” he assured her, setting down his hat. “I took no part in the dark road that brought you here. That was squarely your doing, but I would love nothing more than to steer you down the only lane that matters. To join together with you on the path of righteousness that I hear your soul call out for.”

 

“You’re not listening to my soul.” Rey muttered, sinking to the ground.”You don’t see anything at all.”

 

“I see a marked heathen who will burn in three day's time. But fear not, all is not lost,” Reverend Ren replied, smiling rapturously down at her. His once chilly tone thawing as he hit his stride,“ You can still repent. Confess now, and you’ll feel God’s grace shine again upon you. Confess your sins, Good Puritan.”

 

Weaving her fingers tighter together, Rey did not greet his joy with open arms. During her farce of a trial, she’d suffered through similarly passionate sermons, and she couldn't be moved to react more. Not when at the lowest point in her life, the poor woman had already endured numerous gloating summaries about the plans for her spirit in Hell but never once was salvation on Earth ever mentioned. Oddly enough, there seemed to be no repenting and living option ever offered. The suggestion of her blackened morality was apparently enough to guarantee damnation, but it was the confirmation of her date on the stake that gave her the shivers.

 

“I-I have n-nothing to c-confess.”

 

“Why do you choose to spite a God that loves you?” Reverend Ren demanded, his features contorted with pain as though he were the one nearing roasting. “Why do you shun him after all that your wickedness has so far earned you?”

 

“I am not here on account of _my_ wickedness,” Rey sharply corrected the conduit of judgment staring down at her. “I am here thanks to fragile men blaming me for their faults!”

 

“Would you be referring to the town constable who saw you consorting with a demon?”

 

“Oh, did Goodman Turner see me with his wife?” Rey snapped, flashing her fury before biting back down onto her tongue. Hearing the conversation already run away from her, but powerless to rein herself in when she needed it most. “Please, I-I didn’t mean it. Please, forgive me.”

 

“It is not _I_ that you need ask forgiveness from.” Reverend Ren remarked before leaving her alone in her cell again.

____________________

 

“How did you find our witch?”

 

Nearly choking on his bite of lentils, Reverend Ren glanced up from his supper. Grimacing as he discovered a grotesque stranger leering at him, and frustrated as his eyes watered while clearing his throat. Somehow accepting the shared look between them as an invitation to join the clergyman, the burly intruder dared to set his plate down. Common courtesy openly ignored even as his reluctant companion gruffly stated, “I find her supernaturally stubborn.”

 

The jailer named Plutt nodded. “Nasty vixen, that one.”

 

“You’ve met her?”

 

“Aye, I have night watch over her.”

 

Dabbing his mouth with a kerchief, the minister took his time debating whether or not to voice the observations that had tortured his psyche after meeting the prisoner. Gossiping was strictly frowned upon in civilized society, but the temptation to unload his troubles called to Reverend Ren. Conceding to curiosity, he lowered his voice so others in the boarding house would not eavesdrop on his confession, “I did not expect her to be so young...so sweet appearing.”

 

“The devil’s work is easiest when we think his offer attractive.”

 

“Very true.”

 

“Was she wicked then?”

 

“Vulgar, yes.”

 

Ripping into his bread, the jailer chewed while talking, “You're visiting, right?”

 

“Indeed,” the clergyman answered, proudly smiling. “Since Salem Village is currently between ministers, the magistrate requested my services for the unique situation.”

 

Plutt snorted. “Killin’ witches ain't quite so unique anymore.”

 

Reverend Ren frowned.

 

“When witches repent here, they don’t usually hang though,” Plutt carried on, slurping up soup between bites. “But I heard that it was you that advised a death by fire. That true?”

 

“Indeed,” the minister nodded, his excitement showing off as he leaned forward in his seat.”As you know, in order to maintain decency in our society, faith and reason must come together to solve problems. Since the judgment of decent, intelligent men would have surely sniffed out her innocence at trial, I could only see one biblical recommendation for her sentence. _Everybody_ knows that it's a proven fact that witches don't burn. For hundreds of years that testing method remained tried and true, and so I successfully reasoned with the magistrate that the threat of a witch going free was too dire a fate to risk blundering.”

 

At the end of chugging down a long swig of water, the jailer smeared the back of his bloated hand over his mouth. “Though perhaps for a woman like that, we’d be lucky to be so damned,” he chuckled.

 

“You speak of heresy.”

 

Quite miraculously, a sharp rebuke from a man of the cloth caused the jailer to recall his absent propriety. His most pious, penitent expression taking over his features. “Aye, sir," he hastily said, cringing. "Of course, of course. Pray pardon me. Seems that her charms must have bewitched my tongue into such nastiness.”

 

_They blame you for all their faults._

 

Suddenly drained of his appetite, Reverend Ren pushed away from the table while muttering a flustered goodbye.

____________________

 

A leak steadily fell from Rey’s prison ceiling.

 

The small splashes came down innocently one by one until frigid water sloshed around her ankles. By the time her toes pruned, Rey couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering nearly out of her skull. It was a cold that killed, but screaming for help seemed like a fool’s errand even if she'd possessed energy. Desperate to keep warm, Rey hugged her torso instead of wasting tears. Her shaky hands rubbing up and down the rib bones that jutted out against her palm, but all she could feel was the brutal cold.

 

_They’ll have to help me._

 

_Shouldn’t be long now._

 

Every night brought water, bread ends, and corn cake. Every night the order remained the same: a cup of lukewarm water, two stale bread ends, and a mound of moldy corn cake. To stave off hunger pains, Rey would somehow manage to force the foul meal down- no place for her tastes to interfere when her stomach hourly threatened to devour her from the inside out. Day after day, the unappetizing food would eventually slide down Rey's gullet, and that's why she promptly forgot all about her bone-numbing chill when a new dish came through the door slot. The cup of water still remaining the same as always, but beside it on the plate sat a hunk of grayish meat.

 

“Praise be,” Rey whispered before ravenously tearing into the first meat she’d seen in weeks, licking her fingers so as not to waste a drop.“Praise be.”

 

All stringy between her teeth, the flesh tasted slightly sour. It wasn’t even good, but Rey's grimy hands kept raised up in front of her face. Shoveling down what little joy she'd been allowed that day, gratefully swallowing a rare reprieve from her suffering. Giving her thanks between sloppy bites until the cruel nighttime jailer's laughter drowned out Rey's gratitude.

 

“So our little witch does like rat!”

 

Clapping a hand over her mouth, Rey recoiled away from the plate. Screaming while heaving against her palm, almost vomiting the rancid hunk up, but she was too hungry not to finish. Pushing down all her pride, she closed her eyes. Imagining each bite as tender pork, venison, or beef so she could swallow it down.

  
Crying with each bite, but thankful that at least her tears salted the meat.

___________________

 

During one of her last sunrises, Rey thrust her hand between the bars on her window. Her fingertips extended with the hope that perhaps a touch of nature could restore what man had broke, and after a few minutes she pulled them back slowly. Pressing her sunshine warmed fingers against her cheeks, sighing with relieved pleasure. All the while pointedly ignoring the fact that the next time that she’d feel the sun’s kiss upon her face would be on that long march up to Gallow’s Hill.

 

Choosing to remember the sun on her own terms, Rey closed her eyes. Picturing a perfect summer day from long ago, recalling the sound of the wind picking up around her. Remembering the steady flapping of her soles against grass as she ran, and pretty soon, adult Rey had blocked out the hellish screaming coming from down the prison hallway. Eventually only seeing her little chubby legs sprinting away from her mother, hearing her childish laughter bubbling up to the clouds until her feet gave out.

 

Hitting the ground with a thud, young Rey hadn’t cried. Without missing beat, she’d simply begun rolling around in dandelions and clover. Her wee arms flailing, giggles unstoppable as the snowy puffs exploded into the air around her with every movement.

 

“Come back, my wild child!” Her mother shouted from behind, scolding but unable to suppress a laugh.

 

“Mama!” the five-year-old only giggled back, burying her face in the flowers before sitting up with a pout. “They don’t smell.”

 

“Not all flowers do.”

 

“Who wants flowers that don’t smell?’ Rey’s nose crinkled up in frustration, demanding, “Who wants that?”

 

Sitting down beside her child, Goody Kenobi plucked a dandelion.

 

“Aye, tis true that the dandelion offers no fancy scent, but the stems are special," her mother explained, tawny eyes twinkling. "All one needs is a single brewed cup to calm a nervous mind, or ease an upset stomach.” Holding up the flower, she gave it a playful nod of thanks. “So you see, my lamb, not all is what it seems upon first viewing. Everything in nature has countless uses- and you're wise to remember that.”

 

Swishing the weed around sent the little tufts floating into the air.

 

“They also make me happy," she continued, "and so I am somebody who very much enjoys a flower without a scent.”

 

Nobody smiled quite so serenely as Mother. She knew everything about anything, and so little Rey believed her. Deciding with a bob of her chin as she took another non-fragrant sniff that being different wasn’t quite so bad at all.

 

_You are effervescent._

 

_You are my lovely girl._

 

Only an hour after dropping onto her cell floor thanks to exhaustion, Rey groggily stirred awake. To hold onto her mother’s voice, her fingers splayed out. Fighting to stay in a dream too wonderful to last when what faced her in the real world was a stern minister’s luminous, black eyes pinning her with good morning condemnation.

 

“Revelation twenty-one: eight- ‘But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable and murderers, and the whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

 

“Genesis nine-three,” Rey croaked, pushing up into a seated position further away from her torturer. ”‘Everything that moveth and liveth, shall be meat for you: as the green herb, have I given you all things.’”

 

“Is that how you defend your sorcery?”

 

“No,” Rey bitterly laughed, hanging her head.“That’s how I prove your hypocrisy. After all, how can you accuse me of harming others when all I ever did was apply nature’s medicine? According to the scripture in your hands, all God created we were meant to use.”

 

Narrowing his eyes, Reverend Ren scoffed in disdain. “You claim that your elixirs never harmed others?”

 

“For a small fee I soothed aches, I helped babies grow in barren wombs, and I eased embarrassing health issues,” Rey explained, rubbing at her eyes. “People came to me with their burdens, and I healed using all the blessings provided to me. I only ever tried to be good."

 

“Goodness,” Reverend Ren stressed, ”does not demand rewards.”

 

“I helped my community.”

 

“No!” Kylo shouted, going red-faced at her blasphemy. “Foul temptress, you tricked men into believing that you could extend life with your potions! Even when you knew that you held no real power over death, you gave hope,” he accused, shaking his Bible at her. “Oh yes, it's with a flowery tongue that you speak, but you are a blight on religion and on charity, and therefore none shall be offered to you.”

 

“There it is!“ Rey hissed. “Again I am to blame for man’s failings.”

 

“If you were the one to kick the ladder out from under them, then yes!”

 

Stepping backward, Rey crowded into a corner to protect herself. Putting her arms over her head as if to fend off an attack, but she was too spent to fight. Entirely lacking the strength required to continue defending herself day after day, and so she sobbed miserably into her hands. “What do you need to hear to leave me alone?”

 

“The truth.”

 

“I-I have told you the truth.”

 

“When did you last conjure with the devil?”

 

“Yesterday when you saw me!”

 

“Crude woman,” the clergyman growled, slamming his hand against the wall. “You are damned! You are damned yet still you mock us!”

 

“You are wrong and deserve to be mocked!”

 

It took the shock of her yelling back at him to snap Reverend Ren back into remembering himself. Knocked away from his ferocity, he abruptly dropped his hands. Startled by how close he’d come to winding the digits around her throat, and the wet-cheeked prisoner looked so pitiful that he couldn’t meet her stare. Just like that, all lasting rage snuffed out of him, but what sickened him to the core was realizing that this awful woman could move him even as she pushed him like no other ever had before. Forcing him to acknowledge his lack of control as she wickedly tested his convictions one teardrop at a time.  “Do not cast yourself as the victim here,” Reverend Ren scolded her, struggling to compose himself. “It is a fact that supernatural forces exist to ruin us. Battling Satan's charms is an eternal fight for me, and that's why no matter how fine a face you put on I see your true ugliness.”

 

“Is my captivity proof of goodness winning?”

 

“That’s not what I suggested-”

 

“You will butcher me for hysteria.” Rey whimpered, no longer brushing away the tears streaming down her face. “Do you even understand why the men in my village shipped me here?”

 

“Because you are a witch.”

 

“ _No_ , because accusing is easy, but few are willing to stomach the murder all the way through. Pointing and shouting they could manage just fine, but they leave you to do the worst of God’s work.”

 

Reverend Ren flustered. “I am not so easily manipulated.”

 

“No, you are far worse. Deep down _you_ are selfish. You see whatever you need to justify turning me into a villain that keeps you in business,” Rey accused, pointing her finger to the four corners of her cell. Shouting out,”Oh, you don’t want to go to church, don’t think you need to? Look there- there is a witch! Look there is another one! And another! Come back to me, my flock! Look at Satan nipping at your heels! Only I can save you!”

 

“Hush your lying mouth!” Kylo roared, his face shaking.

 

“Not until you admit that you need me to be evil to offset your lacking goodness!”

 

“Repent!”

 

“No!” Rey snarled back at him. “In two days you’ll take my life, but today I’ll keep my own tongue!”

 

“You still have the audacity to slander good men-”

 

“This is not the work of good men,“ Rey cried out, pressing her palms against her eyes while lecturing a man who refused to see. “This is insanity! I-It started here, but madness keeps spreading!”

 

“So everybody charged is innocent then?” Kylo laughed incredulously. “Is that why there are no more demonic possessions in the villages we’ve purged?”

 

“No,” Rey sighed in defeat. “It’s because there were no demonic possessions to begin with.”

 

Feeling her insidious manipulations starting to saturate again, Kylo pressed his hands against his ears. Blocking out her trickery. Squeezing his temples while continuously preaching,

 

“Exodus twenty-two: eighteen, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ “

______________________

 

_May 8th, 1692_

 

_No part of me wished to give credence to the gossip. However, there can be no mistaking the truth. As sure as I know that I was called upon to spread goodness, I am now positive that only the devil could tempt me through such pleasing tones. No middle ground can exist when Rey Kenobi moves me closer and closer to doubt all that I know to be true._

 

_There can be no quiet in my mind so long as she lives._

 

While whispering under his breath for guidance, Reverend Ren scribbled into his journal. Writing for hours, frantic to get the words to the page less something should befall him. Practically pleading with every stroke of the quill for the power to deny the seductive doubt that one woman had so masterfully sewed into the very fabric of his faith, and coming up exhausted.

 

_“You’re not listening to my soul. You don’t see anything at all.”_

 

Dropping his quill, the minister stared up at the ceiling. Desperate for any signs from above to explain why this woman dug under his skin like nobody ever had before, but only encountering hints of his own weakness inside his room. For no matter how ardently he recited his prayers, appealed to her ration, she victimized him with doubts. Attacking him with sacrilege that fell prettily from her lips each time they met, and poor Reverend Ren battled to stay pure in thought that day.

 

_There can be no mercy for her kind._

 

_There can be no concessions._

 

_She is evil, and she has been found guilty._

 

Before their first meeting, the minister had fully expected to witness the light of the devil dancing in her eyes. Based on the testimony of the trial, Reverend Ren had readied himself to see evil lurking in her grin or actual scales on her arms. All manner of grim scenarios played in his mind on a loop before his first step through the door, but the woman inside defied logic. Instead of prim mannerisms, she’d confronted him head on with her sacrilegious passion. Burning him again and again with fiery responses that mocked his devotion while stubbornly demanding answers to unbecoming questions about the role of the sexes that Reverend Ren didn’t even feel comfortable repeating in his mind.

 

_I am here thanks to fragile men blaming me for their faults!_

 

“You are a fool, Kylo”

 

Dropping his head into his hands, the young minister tore into his hair. Scratching at his scalp, he dominated where he could as he felt more and more powerless each second. All her honeyed heresy had slipped off her tongue to turn everything sour in his belly, and a thoroughly distraught Kylo Ren couldn’t stand to return to her viper’s den again. Pressing his thumbs against his forehead, the minister obsessively prayed. He shamelessly pleaded that day to a God that had never steered him wrong for the power to resist sinking further into dangerous waters that she’d lured him closer to with her angel face attached to a succubus body.

 

Rubbing a hand down his forehead, Reverend Kylo Ren squirmed.

 

Feeling the woman’s influence itching under his skin.

 

Sure more than ever as he twitched that the witch would burn and deserve it.

 

_________________

 

Only a step away from storming back into the gladiator cage again, Reverend Ren lingered outside of the prison. After checking to make sure that nobody watched, he glared back at his stubborn boots- silently urging them to get on with their marching orders. Reminding them, and him, that he was only facing someone locked up, but it still took another five minutes before the minister approached the accused witch sitting calmly in her cell.

 

“Did sleep help you come to your senses?”

 

In anticipation of her venom, he’d kept his hand on his Bible. Ready to draw strength from the best words ever spoken, but Rey traced the stones beneath her feet with her fingers. Throwing him off guard with her passiveness, her meekness. Long after the door closed, her head remained bowed, and the minister considered her pose a small mercy if it spared him from staring directly into her eyes as he patronized her.

 

“They say that you live on a farm,” he stated.

 

Without looking up, Rey answered, “Aye.”

 

“Alone?”

 

“Aye, sir.”

 

For a split second, something curiously close to admiration worked up inside of the minister before he remembered who he was speaking too. “Why would a woman live alone outside of town?” he asked gruffly, his lip curling in disgust after his stumble into weakness.

 

“When my widow mother passed nobody came to send me away.” Rey sniffed, tracing again without looking up. “I suppose it was easier to forget about me than care...” Tapping her finger along the floor, Rey shakily inhaled before going on, “Fortunately, there are enough resources on the land to keep me well fed. There are plenty of chickens, and corn, and an orchard of peach trees and apples.”

 

“Sweet as Eve’s fruit, I’m sure.”  

 

Too exhausted to fight, Rey kept silent.

 

“Do you know what they say transpired on your farm?”

 

Flicking her chin up, Rey glared savagely at him. “Why do you keep coming?”

 

“What happened on your farm?”

 

“The case is lost, and so why must you continue torturing me?”

 

Undeterred, Kylo pressed forward, “Do you know what they say happened on your farm?”

 

“I’ve heard the lies.”

 

When she sat submissively with her dark lashes resting upon her cheek, the fight felt one-sided. She was as tame as he'd ever seen her, but Kylo could feel the serpent poised to take over the conversation. As he watched the rise and fall of her bosom, he could sense her closing in on bewitching him again when she was most enticing, almost docile. Clearing away the suspicious thickness blocking his throat, he asked, “So you didn’t ravish then poison the town constable?”

 

“No,” Rey sighed in resignation. ”I did nothing wrong.”

 

“Stop with your deceit,” Kylo ordered, hating the little witch most when she put on vulnerable airs. “Great or small, all sins are punished.”

 

“How can you say that when I see how you look at me?” Rey replied, wetting her lower lip with a tongue glide that he couldn’t look away from. “There is sin in you too, sir, and yet I am in here while you shall walk freely. Nae, all sins are not punished.”

___________________

_May 9th, 1692_

 

_The devilish woman tries me._

 

_My path to salvation gathers new bends in the road each time we talk, and yet I can not avoid her. For some unexplainable reason, I am compelled to keep her from resting in peace until it is her only option, and so my compulsions punish us both._

 

_I come, we fight, and she is right to question my intentions._

 

_Pursuing the cleansing of her soul when she shall perish either way is the height of masochism. There is no reasoning with her, and I know that, but it's also impossible to quench this obsessive goal I have to succeed where the trial failed. More than anything in the world now I long for her to admit her wickedness -to own up to her crimes if only to explain her unnatural ability to punish me._

 

_Yes, she is hopeless, and I am equally as hopeless to expect more._

 

Inside his austere lodgings, Reverend Kylo Ren pushed away his inkpot. Groaning out a defeated sigh, he massaged his palm while staring out of his window. Fixating on the building down the road where his personal banshee awaited, and deeply fearing then that nothing could keep him away.

 

___________________

 

Back and forth in Rey’s cell, the relentless minister paced.

 

“Confess,” he repeated with agitation, ravaged by a lack of sleep and sensitivity.“Confess!”

 

“I will not!”

 

“Confess.”

 

“What does it matter?” Rey’s voice strained, the threads of her sanity unraveling after hours of continuous inquisition. “What does it matter?”

 

Crouching down in front of her, Reverend Ren hissed, “It matters because you will burn. You will burn regardless, but at least speak the truth once before you go. For the love of all that is good, put us out of the misery that comes from having to suffer through your lies for a second longer.”

 

Rey cried out in shock. “Put you out of your suffering?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“Very well!”

 

Staring into her captor’s eyes, Rey let the truth flow out then in the hope that it might pull him under as it had for her, “Goodman Turner came to purchase a tonic for his hair loss. I had nothing that could aid his misfortune, and in a fit of rage, he grabbed my arm while screaming that he’d take one thing or another from me. Then there was a nasty click.“

 

Rey’s nostrils flared as she tilted her head. “Have you ever heard a bone pop out of the socket?”

 

“No-”

 

“Well, that’s what I heard when he threw me up against the wall. That grinding click over and over again as he rutted against me like a rabid animal. Using my thigh for evil, he grated my bones together while whining between moans that he’d traveled too far to leave unsatisfied,” Rey spat out, shaking her head while replaying the screeching from that day. “He...he warned me not to scream, and then he laughed as he said nobody would care anyways.”

 

At the sound of her anguish, Reverend Ren looked away. “I didn’t know. I didn’t-”

 

“When he could not finish,” Rey interrupted his useless apology, unwilling to stop what the minister had demanded even if he would have paid for it. ”When he could not finish, Goodman Turner blamed me for tempting him. The next day they came for me.”

 

“Did you tell others what occurred?”

 

“Of course,” Rey shouted, throwing her hands up. “But who would speak against my accuser? It was only Goodman Turner and I together that day in my home. His word pitted against mine, and yet how could a judiciary rightfully pass judgment without ever understanding the daily risk of being female? How could they understand how much he took without leaving a mark? No, the male weaklings stuck together. All of those vindictive men shouting into my face that as my ancestor was sculpted from Adam’s bones to be a submissive, so I should know my place. Demanding for  _me_ to keep my wicked tongue silent! So I ask you, how could anyone possibly speak the truth for me in the face of such prejudice?”

 

“God knows you, and God speaks through men.”

 

“Then God is a liar.”

  
The utter emptiness in Rey’s response left no room for argument. Nobody with ears could deny the honesty ringing in her story, and the previously incensed Reverend Ren stood in front of her subdued. Silenced into paralyzing panic, because as long as she stuck to her story there would be no saving this lamb from the slaughter.

 

____________________

 

Hours later, the servants came in to wash Rey down. The two hefty women went at Rey's skin with drenched rags after tearing off her clothes. Vigorously massaging the caustic soap against her flesh, violating the enraged prisoner’s modesty. Leaving her raw inside and out while ignoring Rey’s humanity as she bawled.

 

“Leave me alone!”

 

“There, there,” one of the two elderly women barked back, dropping soiled rags into a basin as Rey stood there shivering naked. “At least your outsides will be clean when you meet your maker.”

 

_____________________

 

The toll of the church bell sounded.

 

With only a few hours left before her scheduled death, Rey stood completely still by the window. She didn’t fuss, she didn’t fidget, and there was no pacing to get away from her problems. When Reverend Kylo Ren entered her cell for the last time, she stood there as pristine as she was vengeful.

 

“Have you-” the minister started before stammering, “You, you’re-”

 

“Clean,” she finished for him.

 

Language suddenly failed Reverend Ren. The longer it took him to string words together again the more foolish he felt, but he was rendered unable to think properly. Nothing sensible coming to mind as Rey stood before him like an immaculate living painting. Even with bound hands, she remained a force to be reckoned with. Encouraging all of his senses to beg for abandonment at her feet, and the cowardly man closed his eyes to shut out her influence. Inhaling to come to his senses again, exhaling as he couldn’t.

 

“Please confess,” he begged, his voice raspy. “Please save yourself.”

 

“What would you do for my confession?” Rey questioned, motionless while watching the minister fall apart. “What would you do?”

 

“Anything,” Reverend Ren replied seriously, somberly. “To save your soul, I’ll do anything.”

 

“Hold my hand.”

 

“What?”

 

“Hold my hand,” Rey repeated.

 

Floored by her unexpected request, Kylo gawked at the prisoner for a second as if she’d grown horns. His mouth hung in shock over the words he'd longed to hear, and his feet moved towards her before ration could stop them. Powerless to any longer deny what he wanted, he was unable in the end to resist the temptation to save her if it meant he could be closer too.

 

“You can not say such things when you look the way you do,” the minister warned, locking eyes with her.

 

“Is it only my beauty that buys me your kindness today?”

 

“No,” Kylo objected, swallowing hard. “If that were your only saving grace then it would be easier to leave you be.”

 

“Why is that?”  

 

“Because if you weren’t also so intelligent, confounding, and infuriatingly logical then I could peacefully allow you rot like they say you deserve," Kylo admitted, sucking in a breath even as the truth refused to stay down. "It would be easier if you’d always screamed, but instead you pluck at my soul with thoughtful sentiments that keep me up at night.”

 

“No,” Kylo shuddered, looking down where he belonged. “Your loveliness is only another one of your many thorns that prick at me.”

 

Stripped of her own dignity, Rey savored his shame. She lived for his discomfort. Licking at her lips, she relished the opportunity to share her suffering for a while with a once arrogant man who trembled in front of her.  “Then why do you keep coming?” she asked, pushing him further just because she could.

 

“To save your-” Kylo started the same excuse before abandoning it all with a sigh of frustration. ”Because I see moments of sweetness in you, slivers of something good.”

 

“I am good.”

 

“No,” he whispered, his burning gaze trailing up her body.”No, you shall be my ruin.”

 

“Hold my hand,” Rey asked again, turning her palm up.

 

“I-I can not,” the clergyman pleaded. “You know not what you ask.”

 

“You want me human then treat me as one,” Rey coaxed, lifting up her fingers.

 

Wound up for days with punishing tension, Kylo Ren at last snapped. Lacing his fingers through hers, he dragged Rey’s body closer. Soft meeting hard as he reverently pressed each digit up against his mouth. Touching what he shouldn’t, praising her skin again and again as Rey gasped. Nuzzling against her palm, Kylo softly growled back his own desires. Battling for restraint. Losing more and more by the second, but how could anything be reasonable if a fall from grace tasted so sweet? How could he go on pretending that the Lord’s light didn’t touch this woman when he felt blinded by her luminance?

 

“You taunt me,” Kylo murmured against her, dragging his teeth along her pointer finger. “You must know that.”

 

Sliding the digit further between his lips, Rey breathlessly asked, “Have I made you question all the goodness in the world?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Have you doubted your ego and faith?”

 

“Yes,” Kylo groaned, sucking two of her fingers into his mouth. “Oh God, yes.”

 

“Good.”

  
Claiming his mouth as her's, Rey feasted on his failings.  

 

_______________________________

 

As his fingertips skimmed along Rey’s collarbone, the compromised Reverend Kylo Ren wasn’t plagued by any fear of consequences. Despite what they’d shared, no uncomfortable attack of conscience overwhelmed him afterward. Instead of the familiar doubt, he was instead far more fixated on the comparison of Rey's bronze skin beside his own sallow complexion -the reminder there that she was a woman who mined the land as he tended to spirituality in darkened rooms. Even the way they comforted others was opposite, and yet they’d complemented each other perfectly. Sealing their lips together for hours, they’d shared the same breath. Joining as one again and again, and left infinitely better for their closeness.

 

Propping up on her elbow, Rey pressed her lips again to his before slowly pulled away. “Do me a kindness, Kylo,” she softly said.

 

“Would you not call what we just did upon the ground a kindness?” Kylo mused with a surprisingly cheeky grin.

 

Lacking the time to encourage bawdy humor, Rey curled up closer to his body. Molding her curves against him, she traced her fingertips down his sweat dappled chest. Feeling his heartbeat thumping for her- that pounding accelerating until the organ froze entirely after her request,“Kylo, don’t let them turn me into a sport."

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“They’ll come out to watch me die.”  

 

“Who?”

 

“Everybody in the village,” Rey's voice wobbled as the first tears fell. “They’ll come out to watch me, and it’ll have nothing to do with God. They’ll cheer as I char-”

 

“Please, do not speak of such things.”

 

“That mocking will be the last thing I hear, and I can’t stand it,” Rey confessed, gasping into her pleading, “Please, help me.”

 

As the minister's thumbs gently brushed tears off her cheek, his fingers quivered against her skin. “I’m sorry that I hold not the authority to save you.”

  
“Then let it only be you there!” Rey begged, crying hard enough to quake her whole body until Kylo captured her lips for another tender kiss. Wrapping his arms around her, he fixed what he could. Soothing with caresses while ardently vowing that he’d do what she asked, assuring her again and again that he’d be the only one there for her.

 

____________________

The shackles weighed heavily upon her slight wrists.

 

Each step grated the irons against her bones.

 

Each stumble she took tinkled the metal together until a song of sadness formed just for her - that twisted endless lament guiding the way to the woman’s reckoning as Reverend Kylo Ren trailed behind her.

 

From a young age, Kylo Ren firmly believed in predestination. The concept that God chose who would rise to heaven or fall to hell had been drilled into him by puberty. For years, he’d confidently accepted that belief that nobody could know which group one belonged to and that no amount of morality on Earth could deviate one from the plan. His soul never wavered. Trusting in what he could not control usually gave the man profound comfort, but walking behind Rey Kenobi, he felt his stomach sinking with each step closer to the stake. Already grieving over the fear that the handfuls of contempt she’d tossed in the face of her savior might somehow divert her path - that they might remain separated in the next life too.

 

Never seeing Rey again felt unnatural.  

 

Down to his marrow, Reverend Ren believed that they'd been created to complete one another- that even the shades of her darkness were specifically formed to complement his light. Whenever they spoke she challenged him to see outside of his own views. When their eyes met, she forced him to regret all the times he’d once considered his ideas absolute. Nothing was black and white anymore, and yet the only thing that felt consistent was wanting her, holding her. As he watched her loose hair swing in the sunshine it became impossible for the man to accept the cruel result that two people with such a strong bond were fated to only know each other once. Before that day, he'd always considered himself blessed, and so the minister stubbornly refused to accept that this was the end for them too.

 

The tie he felt tethering them went beyond their physical coupling, and so it could not perish.

 

Faith in their impossible bond eased the pained Reverend Ren, but he kept coming close to begging his lover to confess. It wasn’t fair to demand a lie, but he would have given an arm then if she’d only have taken a knee in front of the magistrate to plead for her life.

 

Other professed witches, if penitent, had been allowed to go free.

 

Other professed witches had gloriously seen the right way again, but Reverend Kylo knew that the woman who’d wrapped him around her finger would never bow down to anyone again.

 

By the set of her jaw, Kylo could tell that Rey intended to see her punishment through to the end. Grimly determined, she'd follow justice in order to sow guilt in those who accused her. Yes, the girl with more spine than anybody who’d slandered her was willing to face the fire, and so they marched on.

 

In the middle of a vast meadow, miles away from anyone else, Rey looked over her shoulder. “You could set me free,” she offered, pausing her step up to the pyre. “Nobody would know.”

 

Twisting the key into the shackles around her wrists, Reverend Ren freed her hands before backing her up to the stake. “That I can not do.”

 

“Nobody would see.”

 

Hardening his lips into a severe line, Reverend Ren remained steadfast. Adoring her then as much as he loathed the unpleasant truth that she forced out of him, “I’ve thought about it. Lord, I’ve prayed about it, and unfortunately, there can be no bending the rules when it comes to proving your innocence.”

 

Rey's eyes widened in shock. “You still don't believe me?”

 

“I _do_ believe you,” Reverend Ren fiercely assured her. “It seems cruel, but that's precisely why I must watch you expire. _Everybody_ knows that witches can't burn in fire, and so when I inform those who slandered you of your innocence, they cannot question my honesty. They will witness the strength of my convictions, and then they will feel their guilt tormenting their souls until they die. Much as fire razes the ground to leave it fertile, so will fire clear you in the eyes of men.”

 

“I don’t need to prove anything!”

 

“We could never live in peace if you were under suspicion,” Kylo explained, his brow furrowing in distress as she asked for outcomes that could not be. “Can’t you see that this is the only way to absolve you?”

 

“Your version of judicial balance is obscene,” Rey insisted, glowering back at him like she'd never heard anything more infuriating as Kylo carried on methodically stacking logs at her feet. “It should have been enough that _I_ said that I never harmed anyone.”

 

“That’s not the way it works.”

 

“It’s the way it should be.”

 

Setting the last log, Kylo dropped his gaze. “Forgive us for not deserving you.”

 

“No,” Rey sharply inhaled.” You are weak. You come from a long line of weak, ignorant males, and I refuse to aid your conscience.”

 

In troubling agreement with her, Reverend Kylo stared down at the rope in his hand. Shame consuming him whole as he began to coil a length of rope twice around Rey's body, but he didn’t stop. Each step hurt him, each twist he felt inside as well, and he cringed in pain as his hands guided over thighs that had wrapped around his torso in pleasure but were now tensed in preparation for her downfall.

 

“Forgive me,” he whispered, petting her hip.  

 

Finishing up the hated task, Kylo didn’t bother securing Rey's wrists or ankles. The minister had read enough about burnings to know that after the first minute the excruciating pain would render her unable to think clearly enough to even make it that far. One knot at her waist would prove sadly sufficient enough to keep her in place, and so he stepped away from her once the rope was tied. Soon enough, death would come swift, she'd find peace, but the clergyman couldn’t keep his eyes from misting. In times of violence, reason holds little comfort, and as he opened the lantern, it was the poor self-righteous man’s turn to tear up. 

 

Convinced that his beliefs were rock solid, he swung the lantern, but the second the glass shattered he tragically realized that he’d never been more wrong.

 

"No!"

 

Holding a hand to his mouth, Kylo cried out as Rey writhed in the bondage he'd made for them both. Those first feral whines clenching his heart into stone, and he remained motionless with shock as it finally sunk in that he would have accepted Rey in any form. Accused, guilty, innocent, free, and even running wild in a forest were all acceptable rational options, but ashes she would forever be.

 

Dust to dust, damned by him.

 

As the roaring flames licked at her dress, Rey’s screams raised up along with them. Her shrieks carried away into the wind as the charred scent fanned, and everything quickly spiraled out of control by the time Kylo broke through his panic enough to move. Without thinking, Kylo lurched towards the flames. No longer able to suffer through the agony of the present, and no longer willing to wait for their joined eternal future, he tore at the rope. Coughing uncontrollably, breathing in carnage as his hands burned while attempting to free her. Feeling flesh falling off his knuckles as he grappled with the knot. Feeling rope melting into his fingertips as he almost pulled it loose until he couldn’t take it anymore.

 

“Forgive me!” Kylo wheezed, staggering backward.

 

Lit up by pain that he deserved, Kylo went dizzy from the fumes. Light-headed and gagging out ashy spittle, he fell over into the scorched grass. On his hands and knees, his guttural screams matching Rey's. Every shrill screech from her twisted the knife deeper inside him too, but desperate that she be heard, he didn't cover his ears. Hanging his head, Kylo listened to the gore he'd brought on until all at once the anguished sounds stopped.

 

The world gone silent, save for the wood crackling.

 

All the awfulness ended until the clergyman lifted up his head to face what he'd done. Gasping as his mouth twisted in horror, "H-how?"

 

Reaching down, a naked Rey gently caressed his jaw. Purring, “ _Everybody_ knows that you can't burn a witch in fire.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I meant to have this posted in time for Revenge of the Fifth, but (like Kylo in this fic) I moved too slow. Love to hear what you thought though!
> 
> -bunny


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